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ASIS 2013 roundup: Highlights from the show floor

CHICAGO—Security cameras features that give security directors “actionable, business intelligence” and take the potential for human error out of the equation were common themes at this year’s ASIS International, which drew more than 20,000 here to the McCormick Center Sept. 24-27.

The following is list of highlights from show floor by Amy Canfield of Security Director News and Martha Entwistle of Security Systems News.

MARTHA's round-up

My ASIS coverage started in the Philadelphia airport, where I was delayed on my way to the show on Sept. 24. It was there that I learned that AXIS Communications had announced its entry into the access control business. While we’ve known that AXIS had been working to get to this point, the timing of the announcement caught most by surprise. Here’s our story on that announcement. I had a chance on Sept. 25 to speak to AXIS Communications GM Fredrik Nilsson in person.

I met with our friends from the Security Industry Association, Don Erickson, Brittany Wolf and Joe Gittens about a series of webcasts Security Systems News and SIA have partnered on. The next one is Oct. 3. It’s on BYOD, here’s a link to more information on that.

I spoke to Arecont Vision’s Scott Schafer about a number of new products including a new addition to its SurroundVideo Omni Camera line. This camera has a flattened surface and four multi-megapixel sensors that an integrator can move around to capture different fields of view within 360 degrees or multiple fields of view. Good applications include bisecting hallways and the exterior corners of buildings, Schafer said.

At Tyco Integrated Security, I spoke to Steve Lietz and Jay Hauhn about the integrator’s new partnership with Lenel to provide Tyco IS’s customers who have Casi-Rusco access control systems with an upgrade from Lenel’s OnGuard Access Control Solution. Hauhn said: “Tyco has the largest installed base of customers with Casi Rusco systems. … We have thousands of customers.”

I met with Janet Fenner at Samsung and checked out the company’s so-called “spider” camera, which it won an Accolade award for. The real name is the SNP-6200RH PTZ dome camera. It has “20x optical zoom, full HD image capture,and built-in IR LEDs for nighttime viewing at distances up to 100 meters (328 feet) along with a host of advanced built-in analytics for advanced system operation.” The most interesting thing at the booth was a display of Samsung’s WISENET III cameras in side-by-side comparisons with competitors’ products.

There are always some booths that stand out. Stanley was among therm. Its lemon yelllow booth shone brightly on a confusingly numbered show floor, making it easy to find. I had a chance to sit down with VP Global Vertical Market Solutions John Nemerofsky and Tom Baldwin, who is new to Stanley CSS’ as VP, marketing). From the show floor in Chicago, they gave me a virtual tour of the company's new Discovery Center in Indianapolis, which is set up in vertical markets, with a variety of solutions (from Stanley Black & Decker and others, including competitors) and also has a GSOC. Very cool. Look for an upcoming story on this.

Diebold Security also had some real estate at the ASIS show; they'd branded the escalators on the way to the show floor and had a very big booth compared to past years. I met with Tony Byerly, Jeremy Brecher, Felix Gonzales and Bill FitzHenry. We talked about Diebold's big push in commercial accounts. DIebold is hiring specialists and teams to take on all vertical markets. We also talked about the new capabilities of SecureStat. Here’s a report on that interview.

I caught up with Tom Catagnus, Michael Thomas and John Vidalis of Integrated Security & Communications for an update on their growing business.

At the Security-Net booth, I spoke to The Protection Bureau’s Matthew Ladd and David Alessandrini, VP at Pasek Corporation about Security-Net’s 20th anniversary. Initiatives for 2014, some of which were outlined in this interview I did with OSS’s Jim Coleman. Ladd also told me the big news that Honeywell has recognized Security-Net as a national integrator.

I stopped by MicroPower Technologies, whose CEO Aaron Tankersly was talking about its Helios surveillance solution.

At Morpho Safran I met Eve Fillon and Thomas Chenevier and got a tour of the MorphoAccess SIGMA Series, fingerprint identification terminals designed for access control and time-and-attendance applications. Slick looking and, interestingly, NFC-enabled.

I stopped by IQInvision, which had announced a technology partnership with Milestone. At Milestone, I met Janne Jakobsen, a new VP, and saw their new Xprotect customer dashboard. Easy to use and an RMR generator, she said.

At Matrix Systems, I said hello to new CEO Holly Tsourides and spoke to product management specialist Mark Heintzman, who said that only one month in, Matrix’s new integration with Next Level Security Systems is motivating clients to upgrade.

I met PSA Security’s new education director, Barbara Shaw. She has some great ideas for PSATEC 2014.

One must see for me on the sidelines of the show floor was Paul Bodell, who is heading up access control start-up ECKey.

I saw Brivo’s Steve Van Till, and at the Brivo booth I saw the new interface for Brivo OnAir Version 10.11.

AMY’S ROUNDUP:

3VR, Cisco, Avigilon, Verint, March Networks, FLIR, Mobotix, Guardian 8 were among the booth visits I made Tuesday.

FLIR’s Mark Kline, business development manager for critical infrastructure in the western U.S., Latin America and Canada, talked about adaptive command through the company’s Cameleon and introduced me to Skywatch, its manned mobile surveillance tower.

Avigilon was showing off its new Light Catcher, designed for hotels, restaurants, bars and other places that use low lighting. The cameras can capture colors in a way that others can’t in darkness or low light, said Ian Povey, director of product management and product marketing. Knowing if someone who just took a wallet from someone’s purse at a bar was wearing a red or blue shirt can be a big plus, he said. Avigilon had a very effective demo at its booth.

Verint end-users Rudy Wolter, director of North American security and investigative services for Citigroup, and Eric Biernatt, manager of public safety, physical and tech security for the Medical College of Wisconsin, talked about their success with Verint’s products across the verticals.

I also spoke with a Guardian 8 end user who is beginning to deploy the G8 ProV2, enhanced nonlethal device at his sites. (The end user did not want to be named as of yet, but he is from a nationwide company.) The device provides a layered defense as an alternative to force from up to 50 feet away, including laser spotter, siren, strobe light, O.C. pepper spray, camera with voice and video auto-record functionality, push-to-talk communications capabilities, the company said.

It’s always nice to put faces to people I often talk with via telephone, so I stopped by the American Military University booth to meet in person my good source, Jeffrey Hawkins, manager of strategic initiatives for the private security sector.

I topped off the day with an excellent dinner hosted by Morse Watchman. There, I had the opportunity to see Morse Watchman executives and talk security with other security industry colleagues.

As an aside, I took a hilarious ride back from the show with nine strangers. It was a long route so I had the chance to get to know Tyler Sweatt from Toffler Associates, who served three years in Afghanistan. Great guy. We at Security Director News thank him for his service.

I met with Motorola’s Jason Hutchens, solution engagement manager global services for government, and Alan Lopez, marketing director, public safety solutions, about the company’s Real Time Crime Center. The system, based on five-year research, allows law enforcement to make better decisions in the field, Lopez said. I sat in a patrol car and witnessed the technology firsthand. It allows police to approach an incident with more operational intelligence than was previously available to them, including video, sensors, alarms, computer-aided dispatch (CAD) and records.

Kim Rahfaldtfrom AMAG Technology gave me some great leads on future articles for Security Director News that I know you end users will appreciate. AMAG, which focuses on access control, video management and intrusion detection, provides security from two-door systems to the Pentagon, Rahfaldt said.

On Day 3, I got together with James Hughes of the North Texas Crime Commission, who has a lot going on. Busy with his work for NTCC, he keeps adding more to his plate, like setting up meetings with telecommunications reps about anti-crime strategies.

Thefts of $5,000 batteries from TMobile and Time Warner facilities cost those companies $100 a minute, he told me during our talk at ASIS 2013. “And they get hit every day.”

“You can’t do things the same way as before. Put up the same camera and you’ll get a great picture of the guy’s hoodie,” he said.

It was great to meet James in person during my last day on the show floor. He promises to keep me posted on his latest doings. He’s really on top of all the latest tech out there and offers that up to his members in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, one of the prime sites for organized retail crime.

At Johnson Controls, Sarah Zwicky talked about multiuse of security cameras, especially in schools and hospitals. I’ll be following up with her.

At Interlogix, Kostas Mellos, sales leader for video and transmission, noting the difficulties many companies have in migrating from analog to digital, said it’s not necessary to start from scratch. “Budgets are still tight, you can leave your old stuff and get new stuff, and we can now make it so everything works together.”